May 26, 2009

The Morning Wrap

Get Ready: Ah, the anticipation. President Barack Obama will announce his Supreme Court nominee at 10:15 a.m. this morning, The New York Timesreports. The president reached his decision over the holiday weekend but waited to disclose it until today. The Times’ Jeff Zeleny reports that Obama’s nominee draws from a list of finalists that include Federal Appeals Judges Diane Wood of Chicago and Sonia Sotomayor of New York, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, and Solicitor General Elena Kagan. UPDATE: CNN and The Association Press are reporting that Sotomayor is Obama's pick.

Showdown: In his national security speech last week, Obama vowed to scale back the use of the state-secrets privilege to block civil lawsuits. But hours later a federal judge in California slammed the Obama administration for invoking the tool in a lawsuit filed by an Oregon charity whose attorneys may have been subjected to warrantless wiretapping, The Washington Postreports. U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker raised the prospect of "sanctions" for government lawyers who have yet to respond to his order for a plan for how the case should proceed. The sanctions may include awarding monetary damages to the charity, the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation.

FCPA: The Justice Department is cracking down on alleged acts of foreign bribery, breathing new life into the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a post-Watergate law largely dormant for decades, The Wall Street Journalreports. The Justice Department is investigating at least 120 companies -- up from 100 at the end of last year -- sprawled across five continents, according to Mark Mendelsohn, a deputy chief in the Justice Department division overseeing the prosecutions. The stepped-up enforcement has forced corporations to re-evaluate their practices and hire costly consultants to help them. The Justice Department has rewarded companies that sniff out problems in-house.

Prop 8: The California Supreme Court top court is expected to rule today on whether to uphold or strike down Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, The Los Angeles Timesreports. The justices will also decide whether the state will continue to recognize the estimated 18,000 same-sex marriages carried out in 2008. Most legal experts predict the court will uphold Proposition 8 but continue to recognize the marriages of same-sex couples wed before the election, and supporters of same-sex marriage are expected to seize on the the ballot box as early as 2010 with a constitutional amendment recognizing same-sex marriage.